Issue 15 February 5, 1996
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Core_Warrior_ is a weekly newsletter promoting the game of corewar. Emphasis
is placed on the most active hills--currently the '94 draft hill and the
beginner hill. Coverage will follow where ever the action is. If you have
no clue what I'm talking about then check out these five-star internet locals
for more information:
FAQs are available by anonymous FTP from rtfm.mit.edu as
pub/usenet/news.answers/games/corewar-faq.Z
FTP site is: ftp.csua.berkeley.edu /pub/corewar
Web pages are at:
http://www.stormking.com/~koth ;Stormking
http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~pizza/koth ;Pizza
http://pauillac.inria.fr/~doligez/corewar/ ;Planar
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Greetings.
This week I were hoping to be the men to announce the first 94 warrior
passing 1000 age; I was wrong because the hill has been calm and aged half
than the week before so this honor will go, with most chances, to my
co-authour Myer, who has already announced the new King of the Hall of Fame;
some person have all lucks :-)
This week is announced the Core War Hall of Fame in Stormking's web page. I
haven't been able to submit my GIF, I hope to do it soon, but I'm curious to
see others.
Last week Myer asked if warriors are all females like ships; apart that a
female named Jack will have a few problem when greeting, I can say that
Jack, Tornado and La Bomba are all male, while was a female Marcia
Trionfale, being a replicator :-)
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Current Status of the Internet Pizza Server ICWS '94 Draft Hill:
Hill Specs:
coresize: 8000
max. processes: 8000
duration: after 80,000 cycles, a tie is declared.
max. entry length: 100
minimum distance: 100
rounds fought: 200
instruction set: ICWS '94 Draft
Last challenge: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 18:37:20 -0800
# %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age
1 37/ 29/ 34 Tornado 3.0 Beppe 145 8
2 43/ 41/ 16 Frontwards v2 Steven Morrell 144 459
3 41/ 40/ 19 quiz Schitzo 141 606
4 42/ 42/ 16 Mirage 1.5 Anton Marsden 141 120
5 37/ 35/ 28 Thermite II Robert Macrae 140 207
6 34/ 31/ 35 Torch t18 P.Kline 137 985
7 39/ 40/ 22 testnorm Maurizio Vittuari 137 13
8 39/ 40/ 21 Boombastic Maurizio Vittuari 137 341
9 36/ 37/ 27 Koolaid II: WoGG v2.2 David Boeren 136 11
10 40/ 44/ 17 seventyfive Anders Ivner 135 106
11 21/ 9/ 70 Evol Cap 6.6 John Wilkinson 133 221
12 38/ 44/ 18 smart crow again Karl Lewin 132 3
13 24/ 18/ 58 Impfinity v4g1 Planar 130 406
14 22/ 15/ 63 Hazy.Shade.Of.Winter John K W 130 153
15 30/ 29/ 41 Jack in the box Beppe Bezzi 130 973
16 30/ 31/ 39 patroclus Kafka and Kurt 130 2
17 36/ 43/ 21 Harmony P.Kline 130 1
18 17/ 8/ 75 Night Train Karl Lewin 127 493
19 36/ 45/ 20 ajax Kafka and Kurt 127 102
20 38/ 49/ 13 Days John K W 127 36
21 28/ 31/ 41 La Bomba Beppe Bezzi 125 601
22 23/ 22/ 54 Hector 2 Kurt Franke 124 521
23 28/ 33/ 39 Breeder v2 J. E. Long 123 54
24 19/ 15/ 66 The Lime Twig 2.1 John K W 123 76
25 24/ 25/ 52 juliet and paper M R Bremer, B. Bezzi 123 602
Weekly age: 54
New warriors 8 Turnover/age rate 15%
Average age: 284 ( 265 last week, 203 the week before )
Average score: 132 ( 131 last week, 135 the week before )
The 25 warriors on the hill are represented by 16 authors.
The hill has been rather calm this week, aging little more than 50, and few
warriors changed a lot their positions. Impressive the fall of Mason, pushed
off from sixth place in few challenges, and the rise of seventyfive gaining
more than 10 positions.
Fast bombers and scanners are dominating, replicators are still having bad
times and stone/imps are losing positions. The average score is the same of
last week and the hill aged a bit in the average having lost but two 100+
aged warriors.
The king position has been held by Frontwards, quiz, Mirage and Tornado, but
none kept a strong grasp on it.
Congratulations to J. E. Long, making the 94 hill with his warrior Breeder v2.
Torch has solved its problems and now is running toward age 1000 in a safe
position, as does Jack in the box; both have an high chance to break the
wall soon.
A few veterans have been for long, and still are indeed, in the bottom of
the hill at great risk of being pushed off, thy are juliet and paper, La
Bomba and Hector; next week announces to be full of meaningful events and I
hope my partner will be able to reenter and report them :-)
A few notes:
Of the 25 warriors on hill but 7 have been published in a working format,
plus 7 others published in an older version and but a few published only as
samples and code snippets. Publishing our warriors, once they aged enough
not be subject to further improvements, can help to reduce the number of
test submitted.
Some authors don't use the ;strategy line to tell what their warriors do. I
think that adding a few words like bomber, scanner, etc.. won't hinder their
warriors performance.
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94 - What's New
Last week
25 19/ 11/ 70 The Lime Twig 2.1 John K W 127 1
1 38/ 29/ 33 Tornado 3.0 Beppe 148 1
4 39/ 39/ 22 testnorm Maurizio Vittuari 139 1
10 30/ 29/ 42 Breeder v2 J. E. Long 131 1
12 36/ 37/ 27 Koolaid II: WoGG v2.2 David Boeren 134 1
15 39/ 43/ 18 smart crow again Karl Lewin 136 1
17 30/ 31/ 39 patroclus Kafka and Kurt 130 1
17 36/ 43/ 21 Harmony P.Kline 130 1
19 38/ 49/ 13 Days John K W 126 1
Worth mention are Tornado 3.0 and testnorm, both coming after a very long
serie of test; Breeder is the only other new warrior entering the top ten
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94 - What's Old
8 34/ 30/ 35 Torch t18 P.Kline 138 985
14 31/ 28/ 41 Jack in the box Beppe Bezzi 133 973
3 41/ 39/ 20 quiz Schitzo 144 606
25 25/ 24/ 52 juliet and paper M R Bremer, B. Bezzi 125 602
20 29/ 30/ 41 La Bomba Beppe Bezzi 128 601
22 24/ 22/ 53 Hector 2 Kurt Franke 127 521
17 19/ 7/ 75 Night Train Karl Lewin 131 493
2 43/ 41/ 16 Frontwards v2 Steven Morrell 146 459
7 39/ 40/ 21 Boombastic Maurizio Vittuari 138 341
11 22/ 8/ 70 Evol Cap 6.6 John Wilkinson 136 221
6 37/ 35/ 28 Thermite II Robert Macrae 139 207
Eleven warrior aged more than 200. Two new entries: Evol cap and Thermite;
and a loss: Mason, the discovery of it's secret hanshake proved deadly for it.
Torch and Jack are now very near 1000 age and in good health, as are quiz
and Frontwards v2, always near the hilltop.
Three of the oldest warriors, juliet & paper, La Bomba and Hector, seem to
be in trouble, even if Torch and Jack in the box have swown us that some
warriors have nine lives, like cats.
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94 - What's No More.
Last week
26 36/ 46/ 19 Provascan 3.0 Beppe Bezzi 126 281
26 31/ 40/ 30 Mason 2.0 Robert Macrae 122 333
26 25/ 31/ 43 Blue Funk 5 Steven Morrell 119 189
26 1/ 2/ 1 blister soul schitzo 5 44
26 32/ 44/ 24 daedelus Kafka 119 32
26 25/ 31/ 44 patroclus Kafka and Kurt 120 27
26 2/ 2/ 0 testnorm Maurizio Vittuari 5 13
26 20/ 21/ 59 Delusion M R Bremer 119 9
26 4/ 3/ 1 Tornado 2.7e Beppe Bezzi 12 3
Mason is the older guy killed, followed by Blue Funk 5
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HALL OF FAME
* means the warrior is still running.
Pos Name Author Age Strategy
1 Torch t18 P.Kline 985 * Bomber
2 Jack in the box Beppe Bezzi 973 * P-warrior
3 Iron Gate 1.5 Wayne Sheppard 926 CMP scanner
4 Agony II Stefan Strack 912 CMP scanner
5 Blue Funk Steven Morrell 869 Stone/ imp
6 Thermite 1.0 Robert Macrae 802 Qscan -> bomber
7 Blue Funk 3 Steven Morrell 766 Stone/ imp
8 HeremScimitar A.Ivner,P.Kline 666 Bomber
9 myVamp v3.7 Paulsson 643 Vampire
10 Armory - A5 Wilkinson 609 P-warrior
11 quiz Schitzo 606 * Scanner/ bomber
12 juliet and paper Bremer & Bezzi 602 * P-warrior
13 La Bomba Beppe Bezzi 601 * Qscan -> replicator
14 Phq Maurizio Vittuari 589 Qscan -> replicator
15 Hector 2 Kurt Franke 521 * Qscan -> replicator
16 B-Panama X Steven Morrell 518 Stone/ replicator
17 Night Train Karl Lewin 493 * Replicator
18 Frontwards v2 Steven Morrell 459 * One shot scanner
19 Impfinity v4g1 Damien Doligez 403 * Stone/ imp
20 NC 94 Wayne Sheppard 387 Stone/ imp
21 Cannonade P.Kline 382 Stone/ imp
22 Torch t17 P.Kline 378 Bomber
23 Lucky 3 Stefan Strack 355 Stone/ imp
24 Derision M R Bremer 351 Scanner
25 Request v2.0 Brant D. Thomsen 347 Qvamp -> vampire
Torch and Jack are leading the 94 Hall of fame, and near 1000 age. The
second wave is climbing fast and facing the top ten position even if j&p and
La Bomba have some trouble and a third wave is around 500 age Next in line
to enter is Vittuari's Boombastic
______________________________________________________________________________
Current Status of the Internet Pizza Server Beginner's Hill:
Hill Specs:
coresize: 8000
max. processes: 8000
duration: after 80,000 cycles, a tie is declared.
max. entry length: 100
minimum distance: 100
maximum age: At age 100, warriors are retired.
rounds fought: 200
instruction set: ICWS '94 Draft
Last challenge: Mon Feb 5 00:51:59 PST 1996
# %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age
1 58/ 25/ 16 Mirage 1.0 Anton Marsden 191 79
2 51/ 18/ 31 CoreWarrior M R Bremer 183 4
3 39/ 13/ 47 Breeder v2 J. E. Long 166 45
4 37/ 11/ 52 silkworm v3.0 Brian Haskin 164 32
5 34/ 11/ 55 Breeder J. E. Long 156 55
6 31/ 7/ 62 Test2 George Eadon 155 12
7 43/ 32/ 25 Qwiksand Wayne Sheppard 154 73
8 31/ 11/ 58 New Papery v0.1 Ian Oversby 151 53
9 44/ 38/ 18 Our Vamp v3 R Bartolome & JS Pul 149 63
10 31/ 15/ 53 Paper8-IV 2.5 George Eadon 147 30
11 25/ 5/ 69 RingWorm_v2.6 Calvin Loh 145 88
12 23/ 11/ 66 Thunder V 1.2 Andy Nevermind 136 44
13 27/ 23/ 50 Spacehead 1.3 Warpi & Philemon 131 85
14 30/ 32/ 39 You Wouln't Let It Lie! Scott Manley 128 39
15 24/ 22/ 55 AB Scanner 2.9.1 Chris Hodson 125 15
16 30/ 35/ 35 Szyzyg Scott Manley 124 29
17 28/ 33/ 39 D'arko Scott Manley 122 19
18 28/ 34/ 38 Uvavu Scott Manley 121 40
19 29/ 38/ 33 idiot/savant v0.1 Brian Haskin 119 47
20 28/ 41/ 31 Maya v1.6c Christoph C. Birk 116 13
21 30/ 46/ 25 Slaver v1.1 Christoph C. Birk 114 7
22 17/ 29/ 55 Paper3 Christoph C. Birk 104 8
23 24/ 50/ 26 CounterMeasures V4 Chris Arguin 98 1
24 28/ 58/ 14 Lenochka 3p Julian 97 6
25 23/ 61/ 16 Maya v2.0 Christoph C. Birk 86 9
Marsden still holds first place with Mirage 1.0 a new version of it is in
the top of 94 hill J.E. Long's Breeder v2 is too in the 94 hill. Is not
difficult to guess that Bremer too will soon make the step in the big league :-)
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The Hint
by Kurt Franke
This week the hint has been made by Kurt Franke that will explain a way to
start core clears with bombers and scanners. I thank Kurt a lot, for saving
me some time to develop Tornado 3.0 :-)
---
Self-bombing and number of scans
One thing I found particularly confusing when learning core war was
self-bombing programs. It seemed impossible to figure out where the
bomb was going to hit and how many bombs are thrown before the program
hits itself. With the macros of pmars, it is easy to control
(some kinds of) self-bombing.
Here is an example, the bomber from juliet storm.
s spl #445, <-445
spl #0, <-446
mov {445-1, -445+2
add -3, -1
djn.f -2, <-2667-500
mov 33, <-20
go dat #0, #ptr
Here was my impression when I first saw this code: "Huh??"
The mov/add/djn loop is the bomber, while the mov 33, <-20 line will
do the core clear, once the djn line is bombed with a split 0
instruction. Adding a few labels,
start spl #445, <-445
ptr spl #start+1, <-446
bomb mov {445+ptr, -445+target
add start, bomb
target djn.f -2, <-2667-500
clear mov 33, <-20
go dat #0, #ptr
The start line contains the increments that are added to the bomb line
each time. If the bomb line read
bomb mov {ptr, target
then it would decrement ptr, take what it points to (start) and
put it onto target (the djn line). Good; that's what we want.
Now we just back up. If the bomb line were
bomb mov {ptr-445, target+445
then after adding start once, the bomb line will make the self-
modification. And of course
bomb mov {ptr-2*445, target+2*445
would take two adds before the bomb line modifies our code.
Here's the general idea:
NBOMBS equ <whatever we want>
start spl #445, <-445
ptr spl #start+1, <-446
bomb mov {ptr-445*NBOMBS, target+445*NBOMBS
add start, bomb
target djn.f -2, <-2667-500
clear mov 33, <-20
go dat #0, #ptr
Now we get NBOMBS number of bombs (more or less) before the
self-bomb that starts a core clear. Except NBOMBS can be at
most the total number of places to bomb. (445 will hit every
fifth place in memory, for 1600 total). Putting a -1 for
NBOMBS would give the maximum number of bombs (like -1 is the
maximum number in core), and that is what is coded in Juliet.
Here is a cmp scanner (strikingly similar to Rave) done the
same way.
;redcode-94
;assert CORESIZE == 8000
;author Kurt Franke
;name CMP scanner
;strategy rave-type scanner (original by Stefan Strack)
;strategy
;strategy this will bomb itself after SCANS iterations,
;strategy triggering a core clear.
WIDTH equ 12
STEP equ 42 ;; modula 2 step
SCANS equ 3999 ;; the maximum
FIRST equ (next - STEP * SCANS) ;; need to end up bombing 'next'
BOMBLEN equ WIDTH+2
next sub.f $incr, $scan ;; Get next location
scan seq $FIRST-WIDTH, $FIRST ;; check for code
slt.ab #incr-scan+BOMBLEN, $scan
jmp next, <next-WIDTH ;; gate
att mov.i $sbomb, }scan ;; attack phase of scanner
ct djn att, #BOMBLEN ;; drop BOMBLEN bombs
sub.a #BOMBLEN, $scan ;; reset the scanning position
mov.ab #BOMBLEN, $ct ;; reset the counter
jmn.a next, $next ;; scan finishes on self-hit
sbomb spl #0, <-STEP+1
mov 1, {-1 ;; simple core clear -> gate
incr dat #-STEP, <-STEP
end scan
- Kurt
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Planar's Corner
Sorry, no Planar's corner this week :-(
______________________________________________________________________________
Questions? Concerns? Comments? Complaints? Mail them to people who care:
Beppe Bezzi <bezzi@iol.it>, Myer R Bremer <bremermr@ecn.purdue.edu>, Kurt
Franke <kurt@protector.lovett.rice.edu>
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